Creator apologizes for pop-up ads

Sorry.

According to CNN Money, Ethan Zuckerman was responsible for the creation of pop-up ads while working at Tripod.com in the 1990s. The pop-up ad was born as a way to fix a problem with suggestive banner ads. A company client was displeased that a sexually suggestive ad was running on their automobile site, so Zuckerman sought to distance the company's website from the advertisement content by forcing the ad to open in a separate window.

And so the pop-up ad was born.

It sounded like a good idea at the time, but Zuckerman has regrets.

Now Zuckerman works at MIT and hopes websites can move away from ad-supported models, and instead adopt more user-friendly subscription or micropayment models.

Thankfully, there are many ways to turn off those annoying ads now, via browser extensions and software.

Just don’t count on those pop-up ads disappearing anytime soon.